PERFUME - PATRICK SUSKIND

I picked up Perfume around summer 2020, motivated after hearing Kurt Cobain's high opinion of the book (the first 1 minute and 58 seconds):

It is 1738 in Paris, and Jean–Baptiste Grenouille is born and everyone is so disgusted and offended that he exists. He possesses no scent of his own, and this is terrifying to everyone, because apparently babies are supposed to smell like goodness. I guess I wouldn't know. Regardless, he possesses an extremely strong sense of smell- so strong, in fact, that he can do a lot of crazy shit with it. And he’s crazy too! So crazy, in fact, that it will lead him to murder. And then he learns the art of perfume. It only gets more absurd from there, of which Jean-Baptiste is filled with hatred of humanity, but also on his scent obsessed quest.

What I should have known, going in, is that Perfume is a fairly absurdist work. It is definately unlike anything I've ever read before (I'm not really into absurdist lit., personally), and I actually struggled to read it for a little bit before it just "clicked" for me, and I got through the rest of the book relatively quickly. It was just too interesting not to.

My relationship to this book is a bit odd. I like it a lot, but at the same time I don't know if I'm ever going to touch it again. Definately not 10 times as Kurt did. But thats just me with the absurdist stuff. Jean's very existence depressed me. I'm positive for a lot of other people, this could easily become a favorite- a founded claim, because this was a best-seller and recieved pretty universal praise.

I guess this could be considered a pretty barebones review, but I just don't think I have too many thoughts about it other than, hey, if you like the absurd, if you like horror, you're probably going to adore this.